Mamanwa Phonology

1 PHONOLOGY

1.1

Syllables

1.2

Consonants

1.3

Vowels

1.4

Stress

1.5

Practical orthography

1.6

Text

The inventory of Mamanwa phonemes consists of /p, b, t, d, k, g,
q (glottal stop), h, s, z, m, n, ij , 1, r, w, y, i, e, a, o/.

1.1 SYLLABLES

The syllable patterns of Mamanwa are CV and CVC: nao 'yourCs)',
kan (case marking particle). The permissible syllable patterns may
be found in various combinations within an utterance. CV.CV ba.ba
•to carry on the back», CVC. CVC sam.bag 'to answer*, CV.CVC ta.nan
»all», CVC.CV kel.ba »to worry ». The most frequent combination of
syllable patterns is CV.CVC.

The high vocoids are interpreted as consonants /y/ and /w/ on
the basis of distribution in these syllable patterns. Thus, ya
(topic indicator), daw »and», kay.qan • later », ga.was » outside*.
Since there are no vowel-initial words in Mamanwa, no vowel-initial
syllables are posited.

1.2 CONSONANTS

The 17 consonants of Mamanwa are: voiceless and voiced stops
and nasals occurring at bilabial, alveolar, and velar points of
articulation /p, t, k; b, d, g; m, n, fj /; two alveolar grooved
fricatives /s, z/; two liquids /I, r/; two laryngeals /h, q/; and
two voiced nonsy liable vocoids /y, w/.

Following are examples of contrast among the consonant phonemes:
p/b: panday 'to temper', bantay ''to watch*, gampak »wing*, qambak
•toad*, qatep 'roof', saggeb *to get water*.

t/d: tagad 'to wait*, dagat »sea», batiq *to hear*, badi *knife*,
qal^t; 'rattan basket', qalad •fence^.

k/g/q: kawas •junp down», gawas 'outside*, maka - (prefix)
* ability aspect*, majga- (prefix) *continuative aspect*, hawak 'waist*,
hawag 'to call*, kav *because', qayqay (exclamation), pikit 'to adher to',
paqit 'bitter', qazoq »to ask', qazok 'friend'.

^/Q* ha las 'snake', qalas *o*clock*, lahof] *to carry on a pole*,
laqoi| *to say', qapoh * grandmother * , qaroq *far^.

^I'^l^' dfpi 'across', lipat 'forget*, badi 'knife*, baloto

22

PHONOLOGY 23

'dugout canoe', labad 'headache', tambal 'medicine', rfpaq 'dirty',
bariq 'to break '^ gfmbar 'drum',

m/n/ij: mananap 'hannful animal', nanay (direct address to
mother), bana 'husband', baiiaq 'bite', mamait 'insect', hagdam 'to know',
qoran »rain», dahon *leaf», lahoti 'to carry on a pole', «a (quota-
tive particle, subordinating particle),

s/z« segaq 'sun', zehet 'angry', qasava 'wife', qazaw 'don't' e

y* Z§. (topic marker), bovak 'flower', hayhay 'to hang to dry'«

^" vani (identificational particle), katawa 'laugh', qababaw
'shallow' •

^ Ixl is either flapped or trilled in all environments: [ rapaYapa
'^ ?aparapa 1 'ankle*, [ baroy ^ baroy ] 'a kind of long leafed plant',
[ gimbat '•» gfmbar ] 'drum'. /I/ and /r/ alternate freely word initially
and medially: [ l£ro '^ rflo l 'wristwatch', [ qfrek ^ gflek ] 'armpit'.

1 2.1 has variants [z], ["^1, and [J], [z] and [z] are free
variants: [zehet r- ^ehet] 'angry', [mazo ^ jaazo ] 'your(pl)'. When
[J] occurs it alternates freely with [!^]: [ mInTeq ^ mfn'leg ] 'marry',
f tawi ^ |awi] 'key', r pi^aija - pi^a^a 1 (type of fish). When [^]
does not vary to [^] it is interpreted as the sequence of /d/ and
/z/: f bfToq 1 bidzpq 'fish spear', [ loXoq 1 lodzoq 'bolo-knife' .

lyl and /z/ are in contrast in certain positions in the word and
are not in contrast in other positions. Contrast Is frequently found
between lyl and /z/ word medially and there are some instances of
the contrast coming at the beginning of the word base, /bu.yak /
'flower', / bu.zag / »camote»; / pi.yaq / 'cat', / pi.zew/ « to close eyes';
/ su.yat / 'to write', / sa.za / 'skirt'; / ka.yas / 'to frighten',
/ ka.za.saw/ 'lizard'; /ya/ 'topic marker', / za .man / 'onion'.

However, complementary distribution also occurs between the two
in that /y/ occurs in syllable final position, but /z/ never does.
Moreover, only /z/, never /y/, can occur pext to a suffix (syllable
initial position). The contrast between lyl and /z/, and the
neutralization of £hat contrast in syllaWe final position represent
an archiphoneme^ , which we symbolize as Y in the following examples:
f bay. hug 1 / baY.huq / 'face'; f kay.qan l / kaY.qan / 'later'; [ ge.re.may ]
/ge.re.maY/ 'small'; [fifiaSuLaaz] /g^ng.qftX/ 'to carry on shoulders'.

The contrast is also neutralized in syllable initial position
contiguous to a suffix, e.g. f hay .hay 1 'to hang to dry' plus [-en]
becomes [ hav.ha.zen ]*. Here the affix syst«n is involved. 2 In
this instance both the morphology and syllable structure are pertinent
to the definition of the archiphoneme . When suffixes of the shape
-VC occur with^ word bases -containing final Ijl (non-contrastive /Y/),
the final C becomes initial in the new syllable and the lyl chrflg^
to hi (non-contrastive /Y/): CV.CVy plus -VC becomes CV.CV.zVC.

24 MAMANWA GRi^MM/lR

[ seng.qay 1 »to carry on shoulders* plus [-en] 'object focus*
becomes f seng.qa.zen ] / sengqaYen ya batag / »He will carry the baby
on his shoulder. *

[ge.re.may] »small» plus [ -ay] 'diminutive* becomes F ge«re,ma.zay]
/ geremaYaY / 'very small*.

[ge.re.may ] *small* plus [-en] *object focus* becomes
[ ge.reTma.zen J / geremaYen ini pagtadtad/ 'Chop this small'*

All consonants occur initially and finally with all vowels
within a single syllable, except /s/ and /z/, which do not contrast
finally.

Clusters of two consonants occur frequently across syllable
boundaries. There are the following restrictions: Z'^/ occurs only
as the first of a sequence and /h/, /z/, and /w/ occur only as the
second of a sequence; /r/ occurs only after /b/; /n/ occurs only
after /g/ and /k/. bozawgit 'boil', sflhig 'broom', baligzaq 'sell*,
banwa 'forest', qabri 'open', tagnek 'mosquito', neknek 'flea*.
Consonant clusters tend to be homorganic* sod lav 'comb*, lagkaw
'house', sombalay 'neighbor'.

1.3 VOWELS

The four vowels of Mamanwa are /a, i, o, e/. /a/ is a low,
central, unrounded vocoid. hadhad 'to fell timber', lopaq 'ground',
qanak 'egg', [e] is an allophone of /a/ which occurs only following
f^f' [ tepras ] tapras 'measles'. This has not been observed to
contrast with [ajl

/i/ is a high, front, unrounded vocoid, silhig 'broom', kasf li
'eel', bftbit 'hand carry' . [i] alternates freely with [xlword
medially before bilabial and alveolar stops. [ salipit '«• salfoit. ]
'fishing spear', [ kolCntas ^ kolfntas] 'necklace'.

/o/ is a back, rounded vocoid which exhibits nondistinctive
variation from high to mid position. The variation to mid position
depends chiefly on syllable-initial glottal stop, syllable -final
glottal stop, syllable -final /ij/, or syllable-initial /h/. haqo
'I', taqo 'person', mapasoq 'hot', baloq 'possible if a condition
is met', tai]ko»] 'green vegetable', qirot| 'nose', loson 'mortar for
grinding rice', hogas 'to wash', hobag 'swollen', homoq 'to shell
corn ' •

/el is a high, open, central, unrounded vocoid. delem 'after-
noon', dedeq *pup', bedbed 'to wind, coil so as to encircle something'.
A slightly lower variant has been observed before /g/, /n/, /d/, /k/,
and /r/. [ basking ] 'strong', [ kaqJTn ] 'eat', [ sff)i^d ] 'like, as',
[liti^k ] 'to pronounce*, [of^rak ] 'to play'. This has not been
observed to contrast with [i] and occurs less frequently than^ [i ].

PHONOLOGY 2)

There is no restriction of the occurrence of vowels. In a begin-
ning dictionary a count of some 2,500 to 3,000 phonemes gave the
following relative frequencies: /a/ somewhat less than 50%; It/ and
/o/ somewhat less than 15X each; /e/ less than 10%.

1.4 STRESS

Contrastive primary word stress /'/ has been noted falling on the
ultimate and penultimate syllables: bahaw * leftover food» and bahaw
*to be healed », toqod »tree stump* and toqod 'purpose*, sabet *to
understand* and sabet »to discuss*.

Primary word stress on the penultimate syllable of a reduplicated
root denotes that the reduplication involves a single stress group
rather than two stress groups. Secondary word stress then falls on
the syllable preceding the syllable with the primary stress*
nakapanfwpanaw iza kahabi *he was able to walk about a little
yesterday*, ;^ banfgbanig ani ya hininan nago *the small mat was
that which I made * .

1.5 PRACTICAL ORTHOGRAPHY

It is proposed that all phonemes be symbolized as in the
previous sections with the following exceptions:

(1) Glottal stop will be written as in Pilipino, i.e., omitted
word initial and between vowels: / qalad / a lad 'fence*, / paqit / pait

•bitter*; written with a hyphen following a consonant: / gipqosan /
gip-osan 'youngest sibling*, / daggok / dag-ok 'thunder*; when follow-
ing a vowel, written as a grave accent over that vowel: / piseq /
pise 'chick*, / qfdoq / ido *dog*.

(2) Primary word stress will not be written on the penultimate
syllable. It will be written as acute accent on the ultima and as

a circumflex when the "s tires ssymlid'lraTtd"'^

same vowel: / barato / barato * cheap*, / sabet / sabet *understand »,

3"^^ / sapaq / sapt 'water*.

(3) The velar nasal phoneme will be symbolized by the digraph ng

1.6 TEXT IN ORTHOGRAPHIC WRITING

insay-ong na babazi ya boog , 'the woman is carrying the wild
pig by headstrap.' daw intabangan na ido . 'and the dog is helping.'
daked ka bobong kaw-a na babazi . 'the wanan got it up in the
mountain,' ja isa nagasay-ong lea bozag o 'the other (woman) is
carrying camote. ' napatay di ja^ boog kay in-osi na ido . 'the wild
pig is dead because the dog cornered and killed it.* mabeg-at ya
boog . 'the wild pig is heavy. ' pagdateng ka lagkaw ihawen Icay
panganen niran . 'when they arrive at the house they will roast it
because they will eat it.'

Miller, Jeanne and Helen. 1976. Mamanwa Grammar.
Huntington Beach, CA: Summer Institute of Linguistics.